New Pedals in the Class of 2025 Pedal-Chain Snapshot = 41

[OCTOBER]  = 9

[NOVEMBER] = 6

[MARCH] = 5

[SEPTEMBER] = 5

[AUGUST] = 4

[JANUARY] = 3

[FEBRUARY]  = 3

[APRIL] = 2

[JUNE] = 2

[MAY] = 1

[JULY] = 1

[A-Z by Brand]

1. Becos FX CompIQ Pro Yuna Soft Knee Blackmer VCA Studio Style Compressor [SEPTEMBER]
2. Blue Colander Grimrobe Dual Cascaded Super Rat [OCTOBER]
3. Blue FX Devices Fuzz Fields Ultimate Modulated Fuzz [SEPTEMBER]
4. Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble Leslie / Rotary Speaker

And so onto the Distortions of the year - the smallest group stage this year! There’s no particular logic as to why there are just 20 Disortions this year. There were a further couple of acquisitions that I was disappointed with - and I deliberately left out of this selection. It’s mostly a case of what appeals each year - and evidently there weren’t that many appealing ones beyond those I acquired. I’m not aware of any particular ones that are still in the wind. The last one in was the ...

So we’re at that time of year again for another Full Metal Racket Rundown. I meant to have it coincide with halloween - but was so inundated with new releases work - that I really struggled to fit this one in. And it now appears a month later than I wanted it to - but still very much at the appropriate end of the year!

As is ever the case - this selection continues to evolve over the years - and inevitably some previous candidates get bounced for more impressive newer variants.

For this...

This feature has been a long time coming. I have somewhere around 60 to 70 Marshall-style Pedals in my collection - while this selection mostly features Dual-Channel or Drive + Boost Pedals - which cover you both for Marshall Plexi and JCM800 flavours - actual and ballpark.

I landed 4 of these this year - the Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker, Flattley Outlaw, Fortin Kali, and Tubesteader Gainlord.

We have 4 distinct types of pedals here across 4 format sizes (Compact / Mid-Horizontal / ...

What a gorgeous pedal the sparkly Outlaw is (check the below last video t see it sparkle!) - with its holographic chrome metal flakes and glorious dipped paisley skull artwork. A killer red-on-red / tone-on-tone theme - with Enclosure, Knobs, Footswitch Toppers and Halo LEDs - all matching.

Flattley typically favours blue-hued devices with blue Halo LEDs - so the Outlaw is a glorious contrast to that norm!

The Outlaw benefits from the perfect complement of controls. I typically like my ...

October was a super busy month - one of the busiest ever - with such a scope and scale and body of work covered - I’m quite shattered as a result!

We had of the penultimate Events of the year :

• The 2nd Woking Boutique Guitar Show
• Kempton Park London International Guitar Show

And around one dozen key posts  as below also :

• Letter from Dr.No
• Teaching Machines FuzzBillion Component Combinations Wheels Gain-Shaper
• Hangman fx DAGG’R Dynamic Auto-Gain/Gate Mighty Morphing Gain-Ramper

Another super busy month - where the lack of a holiday is really starting to impact my wellbeing - as I’m about as shattered and burned out as is possible without going entirely into meltdown - I’m teetering on the edge!

Here follow the highlights of the month - which I normally try to limit to around 10 elements - but stand at 12 for September. No show or onside attendances this month - while plenty of other activities - and some killer releases of course!

• Jo Quail @ the Roland Store,

I’m obviously well onboard with the ToneX One concept by now - and it’s kind of cool, but also a little new money for old rope here  - in putting out different artwork editions of hardware pedals that can house any and every of the many ToneX flavours - in collections of 20 at a time!

I feel the shiny mirror finish of the Satriani Model is the most visually arresting. While I’m much more of an EVH fan - and would really love to have the new Red Edition - with all those favourite EVH ...

I thought it was about time that I tackled Boss’s legendary Distortion Pedals once more! This time around I’ve rounded up all the different Boss Distortion Flavours - with my own particular preferences for those particular circuits. So a number of those are Modded editions - which I often prefer over both the Boss originals and Waza Craft Editions - as I will reveal below.

You can of course break these down into 4 different degrees of saturation if you’re being fully granular - while I’m ...